Happy New Year!

Yeah....I know. I am a few weeks late but hey, I'm here. It's been a bumpy start to the new year. I kicked it off with bronchitis and and an upper respiratory infection that kept me in bed for four days past the start of school. My mom said "Well it's nice to not have to go back!" and I had to disagree with her. Even the doctor said that I looked like I wanted to die. I did. I was coughing as though I was going to hack up a lung. Then I read somewhere that a woman did actually cough up part of her lung and it terrified me.

I didn't cough up a lung. I made it back to work. I somehow, miraculously started 2012 in a bona fide, adult relationship that only gets better and better. And Hector the cat still likes to sleep in boxes. Things are good.

I'm also starting the new semester with some good writing news. I applied to the Jenny McKean More Community Workshop at The George Washington University using a sample from Until the Heart Stops Beating and a letter of interest that I will post later. I'm pleased to say that I've been accepted into the class! Hooray! This is both a good and terrifying thing.

Terrifying because I have to commute to DC every Tuesday: Yuck. It's also terrifying because I have written with any regularity in a year and a half (it looks sooo bad when I see that written down). I keep anxiously checking my email to see what my homework assignment will be! Homework! Ack!

But...It's a good thing because I do my best work when someone demands it of me. I'm really, really excited about writing for a small group of people. I can only hope that they are as excited about writing and read as I am. They must be if they took the time to apply, right?



That reading challenge I started? Oh yeah, that...Well, I'm going to try and finish up Yiddish Policeman tonight and tomorrow. And I'm reading a ton of short stories in preparation for the unit I am about to start with my class and hopefully this weekend I'll get to The Marriage Plot. But it's the Airman's birthday weekend so I make no promises.

I did begin and mostly finish these:

So I will have at least two knitting projects done! And I'm busting down my stash. Yay me again!

And because it's my blog and I can be obnoxious and gross and annoying here as much as I want, I'm still madly in love. #winning

The Whole Catastrophe

Ah the monthly salon.

Once a month, I gather with my writing/knitting friends and we have a salon. We take turns reading our work out loud and offer constructive and thoughtful words about writing. I both hate and love it.

I hate it because I hate deadlines. I hate having to prepare for things. I write best when I have no set dates, when no one is expecting anything from me. I like it that way. Unfortunately, if I want to have a real writing life, that ain't gonna work. I also, have a little bit of stage fright. Even though they're my friends--best friends in town--I still get nervous. And let me tell you, the shot of whiskey and or tequila I treat myself to before reading is not really appropriate for these nights.

I love it because my friends are awesome. They say kind things and they make me feel like a real writer. They are as dedicated to the craft as I am and they believe in my talent. What's not to love? Also, I leave those ladies after hearing their extraordinary works in progress and I'm inspired.

Today I've been doing my least favorite thing. I've been editing. Yep, I'm editing the story that will NEVER be done. at least I think it will never be done. It feels like it will never be done. I thought I'd finish up with it today in time for submitting it to a couple of places, but....that's not happening. Which is fine. I really want this piece to go out and be as good as I can make it Once it gets there, I'm sure (I hope) it will find a home. In the mean time, back to editing.

Last two things, one book related and one knitting related.

I'm working hard on my February Lady sweater. I still hope it will be done in time for my trip to NYC next week. So far, it looks good and that makes me happy.

And...I'm reading "The Vagrants" by Yiyun Li. SO GOOD. And, last week I went to hear Adam Haslett read from his new novel. It was a great reading, though I felt bad for the guy who tried to make a snarky Marilynne Robinson comment. She was in the audience. I picked up Haslett's collection of short stories but I have no idea when I'll actually get to them. The "Tower of Books" it tall ya'll. Real tall.

One more thing. And this is totally a vanity moment, and one that will probably never happen again (well, it happened the night f the election, so I'll tell both stories). Last week I was buying a very necessary Red Velvet cupcake and the girl behind the counter called me by name and said she was at a reading I'd given. I believe she used the word legendary. Though, she could have been talking about the cupcakes.

This happened once before, the night of Obama's election. I was leaving a big celebratory party downtown and a very inebriated young man hugged me and said "Go Obama!" Then he said, "I loved your reading." The two did not deserve to be in the same breath, but it was flattering just the same.

I'm done. Back to knitting and editing, the only two things I'll be doing until the weekend.

New Hat!

Every couple of months, I get tired of my hair and I march myself down to the local beauty school and pray they have a Black girl on staff who can blow my hair out. Currently, I'm sporting a curly afro. But this is not hair that goes well with all the cute little berets that I've knit. On Saturday I started Jared Flood's Beaumont Tam.  I'm about 25 rows away from finishing. It's my first adventure with Fair Isle knitting (where you knit with both hands) and I'm excited about in the way knitters are excited about these things. I took a picture of the project! And because I haven't written in a couple of days, I took a picture of the tam in progress. It's sitting on some of the books from my binge last week. 

Today I....

bought books. I mean, I went on a book binge. Mostly to celebrate the fact that my tax return (completely by two 20 years olds at the Uni) was done incorrectly and when corrected it almost doubled!

Here's what I got:

The Vagrants by Yiyun Li (I saw her read from this book last year and she was awesome and the books sounded awesome)

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (this one has been on my list for a while)

Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese (been looking at this for a long time)

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Larsson Stieg (I read a long article about him and this trilogy in the NY Times, sounded interesting enough and it was the first time I saw three paperbacks on the buy two get one table)

The Gin Closet by Leslie Jamison (Went to her reading last week and it was great. I'm really looking forward to this read)

Irreplaceable by Stephen Lovely (Impulse buy but he's a local guy and I like to show my support)

The Seamstress by Frances des Pontes Peebles (okay, I already bought one in paperback but I gave it to my friend's mom. Clearly I liked it enough to want to own a copy. It's really, really, good.)

And, I got hair products!! Lot's of Pantene for curly-headed girls and some fancy organic stuff that I thought I'd try out (and it was buy one get one)

Okay. Now I need to go clean my house and maybe fine places to put these books. Its not like there's room on my shelf...

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower

The sound of an author reading his own work can change everything. That was the case for my experience with Wells Towers' Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. I rarely ever buy hadrcover books. In fact, I have a rule about it (debut novels from people who went to my program or Sarah Lawrence where I went to college, Andrea Lee, Jhumpa Lahiri, and ZZ Packer. Everyone else, well paperbacks will do me just fine). I had reads the title story some time during my first year of grad school, it's featured in the Anchor Book of American Short Stories. I absolutely loved it! It was exciting and fresh and most of all risk taking. I've taught it to my students in the past and they've often exclaimed that it was the most interesting thing I gave them all year (so not true). Needless to say, when I saw that Mr. Tower, Wells, if I may was coming out with a collection of short stories I headed right over to the corporate bookstore I (used to?) work for and picked up a copy.

It wasn't what I expected. For a girl who writes pretty straight forward fiction I love to read things that are a little off kilter. I love Ryan Boudinot and George Saunders and Kevin Brockmeier. They write beautifully weird, fun stories just like ER,EB. But the collection I picked up did not resemble the weird worlds I was looking forward to. And that's ok. I mean, we write what we feel, what we see and what we want, no? So after reading two very well crafted stories, I put the book down, it got added to the list of story collection I own and will probably never get through. But then, he came to town and I'm a sucker for a reading. Especially when I'm not head over heels for the book.

Hearing an author read his or her own words aloud sends a little tingle down my spine. In a good way. It gives me a chance to see my craft at work. And, I like that. It also make me feel as though I am somehow closer to the words I'd read or at least, closer to the author of those words. Attending a reading can sometimes make me more interested in the work. This was one of those times. It didn't hurt that he also read a story that I hadn't made it to in the collection. It was by far one of the best readings I've been to in the two plus years that I've been here. It was a lively reading and the story was funny. It strayed away from what my friend called "dick lit" when describing the lone story of Wells' that he read (coincidentally, it was one of the two I'd read myself). It was a story I could appreciate. After the reading, I got my book signed (those are such awkward moments. What do you say besides, I enjoyed the reading"?), said so long to friends, grabbed a slice of mac and cheese pizza (the BEST thing EVER!!) and went home to put on my pj's and crawl into bed with the book I'd just been listening to.

Well, I had the slice, I was in my pj's and tucked into bed. An hour later I was at the local "writer's bar" (yes, we have one and I love it and all its dirtiness) shooting pool with Wells Tower. I love this town so and I will miss it when I'm gone. This would never happen in New York. He was, unsurprisingly kind, funny and inquisitive. I would have thought being on a reading tour and going to a bar only to realize you were at the watering hole of every writer in town would drive a writer batty but, he seemed like he was having a good time. He and his friend put up with my impressively bad pool skills. He asked me what I was working on and we talked a little about fiction. And, the quickest way to win me over? Offer to buy me a drink, and then do it. Done. Done. Done. Did I mention my team mate (his friend) and I won? Maybe we won due to some bad advice given to the opposing team, but hey, it can't always be a moral victory.


But back to the work.

It's interesting to me that almost everyone I've talked to has found some fault with the collection. I've been trying to pin point what it is exactly that isn't grabbing us. Today, I finished reading the story he started at the book shop. What I had liked so much two days ago had disappeared. I've been talking about this with every writer I know who went to the reading/read the book and I think at dinner tonight we came up with an answer to the question. These stories are so well written, I mean, this is a man who knows language and knows how to make it work for his stories. But, just when things are getting to the point when I'm about to start rapidly turning pages and my heartbeat is gaining speed, I read the last line. The risks that were taken in the title story didn't show up in the three that I'd read. But what can you do?

All that said. I think you should go out a get a copy of this book. There are so few well written short stories out there, that when one comes along you need to check it out. I'm still looking forward to finishing this collection, I'm sure it will provide more surprises with regard to language.